


The Nocebo Effect

by firesonic152



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Hanahaki Disease, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 20:09:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17270291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firesonic152/pseuds/firesonic152
Summary: That has to be the worst part, Jack decides distantly as he gags into the toilet. Knowing it's all in his head doesn't help.Despite what the movies say, Hanahaki isn't some magic plant in your lungs that somehow knows the desires of the person you love and punishes you if they don’t feel the same. The reality is much worse.It's just you.





	The Nocebo Effect

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this almost exactly a year ago and I'm not sure why I never posted it on here, because I actually still like how it turned out. I love the Hanahaki trope so much, so I decided to play around a bit with the base concept.

Placebos are a funny thing. A testament to the true power of the mind, defying laws of equivalent exchange to create something out of nothing. The ability to turn sugar pills into medicine through sheer faith, like spinning gold from straw just by believing it can be done.

But on the other side of the very same coin, the imagination has a way of making monsters out of shadows.

Jack was in middle school when he first heard about Morgellons Disease, a condition in which the victim suffers from fibers embedded in the skin, causing sores and unbearable itchiness.

The catch, of course, being that the source of the disease - the fibers - doesn't exist.

Yet, it doesn't make the suffering any less real. The brain's intense belief in these irritating fibers causes it to produce the itching sensation to a maddening degree as the victim scrapes away their own skin. Even if the stated cause is incorrect, the result is the same.

That has to be the worst part, Jack decides distantly as he gags into the toilet. Knowing it's all in his head doesn't help. Knowing there's no cause except the machine in his skull making a mistake somewhere and sending bullshit signals to the rest of his body doesn’t stop the signals from firing.

Because he _knows_. And despite that, he's still here, hacking up blood because he believes Gabriel doesn't love him.

When the attack passes, he falls back onto the bathroom tile and starts pep talking himself into getting up to wash his mouth before the mucous taste of iron makes him vomit properly.

It's just his brain. It's just an electric signal sent by mistake. A glitch in his hardware.

His insides ache as he hauls himself up with a shaky hand, using the counter for leverage. Despite what the movies say, Hanahaki isn't some magic plant in your lungs that somehow knows the desires of the person you love and punishes you if they don’t feel the same. The reality is much worse.

It's just you.

There's no reason for the crystalline growth in his lungs, but it's still there. And every time a shard breaks off, the innumerable tiny scratches it makes in his throat are real. And when it eventually slices through something important or blocks off his air, he'll die.

All because of an imaginary threat.

He can't muster more than a dead-eyed stare as he flushes the toilet and watches the little bloodied crystals swirl around. They're crooked ovals, shaped like rugged petals, and strikingly red with oxygenized hemoglobin.

They look so delicate, for something so deadly. Jack can see the romance in it, why it's a popular choice for agonizing plots in Hollywood films. The morbidly beautiful manifestation of a love so strong that, even in vain, it's worth dying for.

Jack just wishes he could have the happy ending that comes along with it too. The miracle cure at the end, when it's revealed the love is returned and the disease magically disappears.

He gargles some mouthwash, brushes his teeth, and goes back to bed. Gabriel stirs and rolls over to blink at him sleepily as he slips back under the covers.

"Sorry," he murmurs, pressing a kiss to Gabriel's forehead. "Didn't mean to wake you."

Gabriel doesn't reply. He wraps his arms around Jack and pulls him into the warmth of his body, nose burrowing into Jack's hair. Jack molds to him, shutting his eyes as he listens to Gabriel's heartbeat slow back down again.

It's just me, he thinks miserably. Just me.

He isn't new to this, these doubts. He's been with Gabriel for a long time - almost ten years now - and it began the first time they kissed. It was manageable at first, perhaps a bit more pronounced than normal relationship anxiety, but he could handle it.

Then Gabriel asked to marry him

He's been told that, as rare as Hanahaki is, it has a tendency to coincide with Impostor Syndrome. It makes sense. The mind becomes so convinced that its accomplishments are not its own that it rejects the notion that it is capable of being loved for who it is.

When he met Gabriel, he'd laid on the charm thick. All he'd been looking for was a quick fuck with the hottest man he'd ever seen, maybe a string of one-night-stands if he was lucky; certainly nothing long term. He could only fool Gabriel into thinking he was worth it for so long

But Gabriel kept coming back and when he finally confessed he was hoping for something more than just sex, Jack realized he'd made an unforgivable mistake: he'd tricked Gabriel. He'd pretended to be someone so much better than he was, someone worth Gabriel's attention.

He knows it was just his brain. He knows Gabriel is smart, trusts that Gabriel wouldn't give his heart to a fake. He _knows_ this. But the problem is that he is not his brain. His brain is a computer, in a very literal sense. It operates on its own terms in codes of neural networks that he can't even begin to comprehend.

He can't control what it thinks. And it thinks that Gabriel doesn't love him.

So when Gabriel held his hand and got down on one knee, his brain sent a signal and his chest squeezed around his heart.

Gabriel doesn't love him.

You're taking advantage of him, his brain said. You love him too much and you tricked him into being with you.

He knows it's a lie, he _knows_...

It doesn't matter. He put on the ring and Gabriel made love to him well into the night. As soon as Gabriel fell asleep, Jack had walked to the bathroom and the doubts blooming in his chest finally burst from his mouth in shiny red shards.

He's lucky, though. Most people don't last a year with this disease. They drown in their own blood from cuts on the inside of their throats. Jack's enhanced healing factor has kept him alive this long by mending the worst of it immediately and minimizing the growing size of the petals.

But eventually, it won't be enough. Eventually, it will slice right through his trachea and kill him.

He still hasn't fallen asleep when the weak morning light seeps through the curtains. Gabriel shifts and hugs him tighter.

"Gabriel," he says quietly. "I'm breaking up with you."

"Mm." Gabriel kisses the top of his head. "What do you want for breakfast?"

Jack is silent for a moment. His throat hurts.

"Oatmeal," he finally says. The only thing he can really manage after a night like that.

Gabriel gives him another loving squeeze. "Mm-hm."

"With honey."

"Of course."

They lapse back into the comfortable quiet.

"I love you," Jack whispers.

"I love you too," Gabriel says, and Jack knows he means it.

It hurts to breathe.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey if you like my writing, hit me up on twitter @firesonic152! I post lots of threads and have a ton more stories on there that you can check out.


End file.
